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Ukraine: The left and the movement to overthrow Yanukovich: two interviews

Mass protest in Maidan Square.

March 2, 2014 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is publishing excerpts from two recent interviews (published mid-February) with members of the revolutionary left in Ukraine that shed light on the nature of the movement that overthrew the Viktor
Yanukovich regime, and the attitude of the small Ukrainian left towards it.

The first is with Denis from a Kiev branch of a revolutionary syndicalist group, the Autonomous Workers Union; it is reposted from Pratele Komunizace. The second is with Ilya Budraitskis, a Moscow-based socialist in Kiev; it first appeared in Marx21.de(translated by RS21). Click on the links for the full interviews.

Maidan and its contradictions

Vratislav: Almost three months ago a
movement began to develop in the Ukraine which since that time has
become really massive and spread from Kiev to other regions. It involves
a longstanding occupation of the Independence square and a surrounding
area in Kiev, riots, occupations or blockades of administration and
other official buildings in most parts of the country. It is also
notorious for a very strong involvement of far-right organisations and
prevalence of a certain traditionalist nationalist ideology among
protesters.

This movement is called "Maidan" or "Euromaidan"
after the square occupation and its initial demand that the Ukrainian
government ratifies an admission treaty with the EU. However, quite soon
this demand became overshadowed by another one; a demand more
prominent, pressing and obviously much more able to mobilise large
numbers of people: overthrowing president Yanukovich with his government
and corrupt state apparatus.

Is that a roughly correct picture or is
something missing from it? Is the original pro-EU demand still an
important and integral part of the struggle against Yanukovich's regime
or has it become a completely secondary one? I mean, if the current
ruling clan is toppled, will they be toppled by masses that definitely
want to take "the Western road"? Is the Maidan movement in Kiev and across the country absolutely unified about the question of "ultra Euro-optimism"?

Denis: Yes, your account is more
or less correct. But you should understand that from the very beginning
people had a very peculiar understanding of “Europe”. They pictured a
very utopian ideal – society without corruption, with high wages, social
security, rule of law, honest politicians, smiling faces, clean streets
etc. – and called it “EU”. And when one tried to tell them that actual
EU has nothing to do with this pretty picture, that people there
actually burn EU flags and protest against austerity etc. – they
retorted: “So would you better live in Russia then?” So, yes, from the
very beginning the protest was driven by the false consciousness of
“civilizational choice”, by nationalist ideological patterns which
didn’t leave any room for the class agenda. These are the results of the
bourgeois cultural hegemony, in Gramscian terms, and this is the main
problem we should fight in this country over next years (or even
decades).

But “Europe” was never actually the main
aim of the protesters. Anti-government and anti-Russian sentiments were
much stronger, so they naturally overtook the pro-EU rhetoric after the
police crackdown of December 1, and now most people hardly even remember
what the initial cause of the demonstrations was. Many people agree
that the very term Euromaidan is already anachronistic. The far
right groups, which initially had to hide their traditional attitude to
the “liberal decaying EU” in order to infiltrate the protests, now
openly state that they don’t care about the EU and only want a regime
change. This sentiment is accepted in the wide circles of the
protesters.

Although, on the other hand, it is a fact
that Ukraine has been historically divided into two
cultural/political/linguistic entities. The Southern and Eastern part
has more people, almost all industry, speaks Russian and is largely
loyal to the “pro-Russian” cultural and political agenda, being
nostalgic for the Soviet state. The Western and Central Ukraine is more
agrarian and less populous, speaks more Ukrainian and leans more
towards West, away from Russia. During last decade Kiev has shifted
politically from the first to the second part. This divide is often
exaggerated to the point where the existence of a single Ukrainian
nation is even denied; this is not true: I think Ukraine is still a more
unified nation-state than Belgium, for example. But still, this divide
does exist, and by the way it was the main reason why in Ukraine the
ruling class failed to establish an authoritarian regime in the mould of
Russia or Belarus: it ensured that no politician has ever had support
from the majority of the population. Therefore, they had to balance and
make concessions to the weak working class: bourgeois democracy was
retained, and welfare state elements are much more generous than in
Russia.

Given all that, we can conclude: EU
integration is not the central issue of the protests at all, but it is
implicitly regarded by the protesters as a natural step which should
eventually be taken by the “good” government after the fall of
Yanukovich.

Vratislav: Maidan puts forward
exclusively political demands. However, the sphere of politics does not
exist isolated in a vacuum, it is a moment of a social totality in the
same way as economics is. Therefore, Maidan´s political demands
are not contingent and I am interested in what kind of socio-economical
reality is behind these demands. What kind of general situation in the
Ukraine produced precisely those demands for stepping down of Yanukovich
and against systematic corruption permeating the state?

Denis: First of all, bear in mind
the political heterogeneity of Ukraine which I described above. These
divisions were actualized during last years by politicians for their
practical purposes. For example, in 2009, just before presidential
elections, the Party of Regions which was then in opposition incited
huge protests against NATO manoeuvres in Crimea. They also promised to
make Russian the national language. In 2010, when they came to power,
they were OK with the same manoeuvres by NATO and nobody did anything in
the sphere of languages – until 2012, when they had to win the
parliamentary elections. Then they passed a law which defended regional
and minority languages, which mobilized both parts of the population:
the Russian-speaking people supported Party of Regions, having somehow
“remembered” that they are being discriminated against and believing
that this law will save them; the Ukrainian-speaking opposition held
massive protests against “linguistic genocide”. So, both political camps
manipulate with these issues, radicalizing the population when people
themselves wouldn’t bother. One year later, nobody remembered about that
“hideous” language law anymore.

So, there is always a large part of
population which hates the current president and they only need a
trigger to start protesting against him (especially since Kiev, the
capital, is in the “opposition” part). This time there was a trigger: an
EU hysteria provoked by the government itself! For the whole year 2013
they were constantly talking about how Ukraine is going to sign that
agreement with the EU. They’ve roused the expectations of the
“pro-European” part of the population, and then, when suddenly they made
a U-turn, people were extremely frustrated and angry. That was the
initial impulse.

But, obviously, there are very real
reasons for people to hate the government, too. When Yanukovich became
president in 2010, he started pushing for unpopular neo-liberal steps.
The natural gas tariffs were growing; the government launched medical
reform which will eventually lead to closure of many medical
institutions and to introducing the universal medical insurance instead
of the unconditional coverage; they pushed through extremely unpopular
pension reform (raising pension age for women) against the will of more
than 90% of population; there was an attempt at passing the new Labour
Code which would seriously affect workers’ rights; the railway is being
corporatized; finally, they passed a new Tax Code which hit small
business. But eventually this assault wasn’t very successful, and the
government had to back off. The tariffs of natural gas, electricity,
heating, water are frozen at a level which is one of the lowest in
Europe and ex-USSR; the Labour Code is buried in the parliament; the
next stage of the pension reform (introducing compulsory pension saving
plans instead of the solidarity system) is halted. They saw they can’t
move on with such low levels of support. But still, the welfare of the
working classes, as well as the general state of the economy leaves much
to be desired, and people have all legitimate reasons to demand better
living standards. Sadly, these grievances are dressed in the false
consciousness of nationalism.

Finally, there’s one more important
detail. Since 2010, Viktor Yanukovich, who had initially been just a
puppet of powerful oligarchs, has become an ambitious businessman
himself. His elder son has accumulated vast powers; “The Family”
occupied important positions in the government, monopolized control over
capital flows, and started fighting with Rinat Akhmetov, Dmitry Firtash
and other oligarchs who had been their sponsors previously. Naturally,
the traditional oligarchic clans didn’t like this, so the current
protest has also an elite dimension.

Vratislav: Now, is it possible to summarise Maidan´s
demands? I mean demands coming from within the movement and effectively
unifying and generalising it. Are there any such clearly and
universally articulated demands? Or are those political demands we can
see and hear only supplied by opposition parties, because the Maidan
as such is rather a chaotic array of individual grievances that
nevertheless identify Yanukovich´s corrupt and increasingly
authoritarian state as a common source and enemy and therefore are able
and ready to speak in one voice with the parliamentary opposition?

Denis: As far as I understand it, there’s only one demand that is shared by virtually every person active in Maidan:
get rid of Yanukovich. That is indeed the gathering point which can
unify all social strata and political camps present there. Of course,
most people would say that they don’t want to stop at that, that they
want total purge of all government structures so that some “new people”
could come and so on. If we look closer, we’ll see a vast spectre of
different viewpoints, often mutually contradictory. So, I think you’re
right that the opposition is capitalising on the fact that currently all
hatred is focused specifically on Yanukovich.

Vratislav: I think I can imagine, what
would the European free trade agreement and IMF structural adjustment
programme cause in the Ukraine. However, it is a mystery to me what
would integration with Russia lead to? What is this Customs Union with
Russia, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan about? I read an article written by a
Ukrainian leftist journalist who claimed that economic and social
policies in Russia are currently strongly neo-liberal? Is that correct?
If that is the case are those policies going to unify the „EurAsia“?
Perhaps, plus an authoritarian form of state, given the character of
regimes in Russia, Byelorussia and Kazakhstan?

Denis: Well yes, so far the
situation of the working classes in Ukraine is significantly better than
in any of the countries you’ve mentioned – because of the reasons I’ve
described above. And the integration into the Customs Union will mean
only bad things for workers: the screws will be tightened both in the
sphere of political freedoms and in the sphere of living standards of
workers. Actually, the statutes of the Customs Union demand unification
of the labour laws – that’s just one example. The government will get
cart blanche to establish more authoritarian regime and lower living
standards.

In the macroeconomic dimension such
integration will be an opportunity to renew the cooperation links in
hi-tech industries – these links were broken in 1990s. So, eventually
this can possibly bring about a stronger economy – but at the terrible
cost, and not only to workers, but also to the Ukrainian bourgeoisie.
Our national bourgeoisie is much weaker than their Russian counterparts,
and integration into the Customs Union will mean their virtual
extinction. Therefore this idea is quite unpopular among the Ukrainian
ruling class!

Objectively, the optimal scenario for
Ukrainian economy would be to continue the old policies of geopolitical
“neutrality”, without decisive integration into Western or Eastern
structures. Any “choice” will be a severe blow to Ukrainian exports and
to the well-being of people. The only question is, how much time is
still left for such neutrality? It looks like both Russia and the EU
want Ukraine to stop wriggling and make her mind finally...

Vratislav: If I try to look at the Maidan
movement and understand it, I am always curious about its class and
political compositions and how they have evolved during the two months. I
think you said somewhere that the initial pro-EU protesters were middle
class. Were you talking about the students? Middle class is currently
quite a fashionable and at the same time very vague category. Could you,
please, specify a little bit more what do you mean by that in the
Ukrainian context?

Denis: Depends on what period you
are referring to. Initially, yes, the protesters were mainly students
and urban “middle classes”: petite bourgeoisie, bohemian circles, office
workers. Right now, the class composition of the protests has
definitely shifted to the more universal one. I’m not sure about the
exact proportions but it’s doubtless that the protest has become more
“proletarian” – although the share of workers is still low, and when
they are present, they are there as “Ukrainians” or “citizens” but not
as “workers”. Also, in Kiev per se life goes on as usual, nobody
is on strike etc. Generally, the protest has a cross-class nature: it
includes unemployed people as well as the CEO of Microsoft Ukraine.

Vratislav: Media commentators
initially described those original November protesters as being
politically liberal, standing for democratic pluralism,
multi-culturalism, etc. Do you agree with this description?

Denis: Definitely not
multi-culturalism! I think today everybody is already aware about the
role of the far-right in the protests. They are not as ubiquitous as one
may think but the fact is that their ideology has really become more
acceptable in the mainstream (which had initially been leaning to the
right!). For example, just recently Vitali Klitschko (who is the most
liberal of all the three opposition leaders) has proclaimed a campaign
called “Don’t be afraid, you’re a Ukrainian!” Of course, most protesters
really say they want political pluralism, bourgeois democracy instead
of the creeping monopolization of power by one party, as the thing look
now. But at the same time the crowd at the Maidan revives some
deeply buried pre-modern, medieval social practices like whipping post,
lynching, reinforced traditional gender roles. This scary readiness to
slip into barbarism is born from the general disenchantment with
parliamentary politics and the ubiquitous nationalist mythology about
the golden past, imposed in schools and media. Mind you, the same things
are going on in the opposite camp: social networks of the riot police
officers in the internet are full of the same shit.

The original Euromaidan agenda in
November was a right liberal one, standing for the EU, “economic
liberties” and bourgeois democracy. But even then the issues of
multiculturalism, LGBT rights, workers’ rights and freedoms were
severely repressed by the politically conscious far-right activists who
had joined the protests even though their own political programme had
always included critique of the EU’s “liberal fascism”. Actually, the
very name “Right Sector” originated after one of such violent clashes.
The attackers didn’t represent the majority of protesters, but the
majority was very susceptible to their political agenda which they had
been aggressively pushing through.

Vratislav: Can we say that following the first police assault, the working class people entered the Maidan? I can imagine all kinds of proletarians are frequenting the Maidan
once their working or studying hours are over: people with stable jobs,
precarious workers, young and old, men and women. Does any such
category compose a majority of the Maidan now? And who are those people inhabiting the Maidan permanently? Are they unemployed, casual workers, who are jobless during the winter, or homeless?

Denis: First of all, you can’t say that “the working class entered Maidan”.
Yes, the number of working-class representatives increased, but, as I
said, they don’t consider themselves a class, for them it is an
irrelevant category. So, there’s no “class-for-itself” at Maidan.
And the majority of the working-class population in Kiev is still
apathetic – I mean, you can’t be sure that someone you’ve met in the
street supports Maidan. As I said, the class composition is now
“universal”. The majority, I think, is still represented by students and
petite bourgeoisie plus proletarians from the Western regions of
Ukraine. That’s especially true for those who stay there permanently.
Homeless people are naturally attracted by the free food and heating but
they are frowned upon by many activists.

Vratislav: How that limited “influx”
of proletarians (if we identify them on the basis of their position in
the capitalist relation of exploitation and not their consciousness)
transformed the political landscape of the Maidan? They changed
it into an anti-government struggle I guess. But what else? Are they
also the most numerous supporters of nationalism and far right
ideologies and thus greatly boosted the influence of Svoboda and other fascist organisations within the movement?

Denis: Yes, the protests became
more anti-government and pro-democracy, especially after the laws of
January 16. Most people were appalled by the authoritarian threat that
was their main concern. And no, I’d say that still the most numerous
supporters of nationalism and far right forces are not proletarians.
It’s intelligentsia and especially students. Therefore, the
“democratization” of the class composition of protests led to a
temporary weakening of the Nazis, not strengthening them. Although in
the long run the rightist political hegemony is being reinforced even
though the numerical proportion of hardcore Nazis may now be less.

Vratislav: Well, that is really
interesting what you have just said about students and educated people
in general being the principal followers of Ukrainian fascists and
ultra-nationalists. Could you explain reasons of this phenomenon a bit?

Denis: I think it fits the classic
Marxist analysis of fascism quite well, doesn’t it? Indeed, in Kiev
intelligentsia and petty bourgeoisie are main social forces supporting
Ukrainian nationalism. In the Western regions of Ukraine Svoboda
has a proletarian electoral base, but in Kiev they gained the record
number of votes in 2012 due to intelligentsia’s disenchantment in the
“systemic” parliamentary opposition and eagerness to try something more
“radical”. And since the basic “common sense” had long ago been
established on the nationalist fundamental assumptions, the
radicalization goes only further in that direction. Meanwhile, working
class is still partly apathetic, partly trusting the major bourgeois
populist parties.

Vratislav: Actually, quite recently I have read an analysis of the Maidan
protests written by a Czech left-wing ukrainist. He claims that they
are “first and foremost middle class protests”, i.e. protests of
“relatively educated and successful people”, while “the radical Right
represents the voice of poorer strata of the Ukrainian population”. He
also says that “a narrow stratum of intellectuals, writers and artists,
who otherwise represent the most vociferous voice of protests, has no
influence on” the ultra-right. Nevertheless, your account suggests a
complete opposite – at least as far as fascists are concerned – doesn´t
it? What about explicitly characterising the Maidan movement as “first and foremost middle class”? In your view, would this be a correct description?

Denis: I would agree that the
“middle class” definitely plays a leading role in the protests – posing
as the “voice” of protesters, even if not dominating numerically (I’m
not sure about numerical proportions these days; there has not been
serious sociological research since the beginning of December). Anyway,
Kiev bourgeoisie and intelligentsia claims to speak not only for itself
but also for everybody else, and there’s no-one around to protest their
claim.

Do they have influence on the
ultra-right? Vice versa, actually. As I’ve been trying to explain, the
ultra-right didn’t fall upon us from the sky, they are a logical product
of objective historical factors and of the policies of the ruling class
understood in a broad meaning. Today they have evolved to a point when
they are a self-sustained political subject, able to dictate their own
agenda and to broaden their cultural hegemony.

In the Western regions Svoboda is
considered to be “the” proletarian party, a political voice of the
working class. I guess that’s what your author was writing about. This
is confirmed by the results of the last parliamentary elections. In the
Eastern regions, such “proletarian party” is the “Communist” Party of
Ukraine. Of course, neither actually represents the working class in any
way, it’s just a picture of subjective political sympathies of workers.

Meanwhile, Kiev is a “transitional zone”
between the two macro-regions. Here, in the capital, no one expected the
tremendous success of Svoboda at the 2012 elections. And the main electorate of Svoboda
turned out to be the “clean public”: educated and relatively well-off
“middle class” which hates the current state of affairs and associates
it with “communist” residues. Which thinks of EU as some fantasy land
where personal virtues are rewarded with material success. Which talks
about “internal occupation” by some anti-national elements. Which often
speaks Russian but is still devoted to Ukrainian nationalism.

Those people are new to politics, they
just “know” they are rightists and nationalists. And therefore they
trust the more politically experienced leaders to express their views
and formulate their programme for them. It just so happens that those
leaders are nationalists or even Nazis. And they shift the centre of the
political discourse even further to the right.

This is the political portrait of the middle-class majority of the Maidan. That’s what happens when you don’t have developed left movement and your liberals are too corrupt and ugly!

Vratislav: You have already mentioned
that there is also an important percentage of petty bourgeois and even
bourgeois people involved. All those parliamentary opposition leaders
and their oligarchic cronies. Thus, at the end of the day we get quite
an interclass movement with a numerically minoritarian working class
component, right? Now, how are political views distributed among this
mass? I read that the ultra-right activists are a minority within the
movement, however an important one. Could you possibly make an
estimation how big this minority is and explain what gives them such an
importance? And what about liberals? How numerous they are and what is
their importance in the movement? I mean even in terms of practice.

Denis: Ukraine has a big problem
with liberals – they don’t exist as a self-sufficient strong political
trend. Both political camps are dominated by right populist ideologies –
a wild mix of conservatism and nationalism. That’s the main problem,
because the actual number of the ultra right activists is not that big,
it’s even tiny compared to the crowd which at some times consisted of
100 thousand people or even more; while the full mobilization potential
of fascists from all Ukraine is approximately 1-2 thousands. But, first
of all, their ideas are welcome among the apolitical crowd; second of
all, they are very well organized, and also people love their
“radicalism”. An average Ukrainian worker hates the police and the
government but he will never fight them openly and risk his comfort. So
he or she welcomes a “vanguard” which is ready to fight on their behalf;
especially if that vanguard shares “good” patriotic values.

Nevertheless, there is a certain distance
between Nazi fighters and “normal” protesters, even the physical one.
The former are now mostly gathered at the Grushevskogo street, at the
barricades, while the regular “citizens” are staying at Maidan.

There is a certain (quite small) number
of liberals who don’t support the far-right. Some of them even staged a
protest against the Bandera torch march. Other liberals stand behind the
opposition party leaders but the opposition is quite unpopular among
protesters. I would say that the general mood is patriotic, even
nationalist, but many people don’t support Nazis and consider them
provocateurs.

Vratislav: From all you have said it
seems that the bulk of protesters is somewhere between right-wing
populists, disguised as liberals, and fascists; they do not identify
themselves with neither of the two poles of the so called national
democratic opposition, but at the same time they feel to be both
pro-national and pro-democratic and all the three political currents are
united on the basis of being anti-Yanukovich. Is this the case or not?

Denis: That’s right!

Except for the parliamentary liberals:
rather they are trying to disguise themselves as left populists.
Otherwise you just can’t win any support from the working class.
Therefore, every major parliamentary political force has a right liberal
wing, which always argues for austerity and liberal reforms, and a left
populist wing, which demands more government handouts to the
impoverished population. The first ones usually get the upper hand when
their party is in power and no elections are in sight; the second ones
are prominent when their party is in the opposition or during electoral
campaigns. The resulting vector of these parties of large bourgeoisie is
a ridiculous manoeuvring: for example, during one meeting at Maidan Arseniy Yatseniuk from Batkivschyna
party said that Ukraine should urgently accept all the demands of the
IMF. A week later he says that now that Russia gave a natural gas
discount Yanukovich must cut the equal percentage off the (already
heavily subsidized) natural gas tariffs for the population.

Vratislav: It is obvious that
conservative views play an important role within the consciousness of a
large part of the Ukrainian population. Where shall we look for
historical and social sources of such conservatism?

Denis: Yes, I’ve already written about the creepy archaic patterns that are being revived at Maidan.
Also, about the reasons: during the last 20 years the humanitarian
policies of the state were in the hands of nationalists. And they
managed to raise a generation which doesn’t see any problem in phrases
like “Ukraine for Ukrainians” or “Ukraine is above all”, in a notion of
“gene pool of the nation”. Also, the traditions and the “heroic” past is
also considered as something a priori good. Denying the current state
of affairs and the Soviet experience, being afraid of all the
progressive elements of EU ideology (like tolerance for LGBT, popularity
of leftist ideology) they are gladly embracing all the invented
traditions they were taught in schools.

Vratislav: Would it be plausible to
identify as a reason of this conservatism also the fact that after the
initial “shock therapy” in the 1990´s, the capitalist restructuring lost
its momentum and since then the Ukraine has tended towards becoming a
“world for itself” and preserving a certain social-economic status quo,
perhaps, in order to avoid an explosion of so many contradictions
(class, national, geopolitical, economical, etc.) that intersect each
other in the Ukrainian society? In such a context of a defensive
withdrawal from global liberalisation processes, strong and widespread
conservative nationalism, with its unquestioning celebration of the
“glorious” past, would seem to make sense.

Denis: I don’t know much about how
this restructuring went in the “exemplary” countries like Czech
Republic; didn’t you have a certain resurgence of conservative values
and nationalist “invented traditions”? As far as I know, that has been
the case not only in Ukraine and Russia, but also in such countries as
Poland, Hungary, Romania, former Yugoslav republics.

I would rather explain it in another way:
the crash of the “real socialism” also brought about the crash of the
progressive values which had been officially promoted in that society
(atheism, feminism, internationalism). The gap has been promptly filled
by the wild mixture of nationalism and conservatism (and New Age
charlatan philosophy, for that matter). This shift was eagerly supported
by the state ideological apparatus. Actually, in many universities at
the beginning of 1990s the departments of “scientific communism” were
rebranded into “scientific nationalism”! Later they became the
departments of “political science” though.

So, this situation is in many ways
similar to the wave of conservatism and Islamism which came to the
Middle Eastern countries after the downfall of the modernizing bourgeois
dictatorships and of the opposing socialist ideology. My hypothesis is
that the severity of this process may correlate to the level of
urbanization in a given country: the larger the part of urban dwellers,
the less the probability of such slide back to conservatism and the
depth of this slide.

It’s true that there was a period of
certain dominance of Western liberal ideas in the 1990s. But it ended
when the state regained its positions and the society stabilized after
the initial shock.

Vratislav: Now, let me get back to the ultra-right elements. How much pro- or anti-European is Svoboda?
So far I have seen quite contradictory information. Is Tyahnyboh and
his MPs really determined to co-manage IMF austerity programmes in case
the movement will overthrow Yanukovich and today’s parliamentary
opposition will form a new pro-Western government? Would not such a
policy possibly alienate their rank and file members?

Denis: As I’ve already said, they
treat the EU integration in a purely pragmatic, populist manner. It
contradicts their programme, but they (Svoboda) will support it
as long as it’s important for masses. In the case the opposition wins
over, the right liberals will impose austerity measures while Svoboda
will probably criticize their partners. Normally, they are quite
sensitive to the social-economic issues, “defending” the workers. But at
the end of the day, it’s the old dilemma of Hitlerists versus
Strasserians. And there’s no doubt that the former will defeat the
latter. Actually, there was already one generation of Strasserian
activists in the ranks of Svoboda who were recently expelled; now they are fighting with Svoboda in Lviv. Obviously, if Svoboda at some point in history wins over the country they will follow the examples of their historical predecessors...

Vratislav: It seems that a struggle against corrupt rulers and/or corrupt businessmen is something what links the Maidan
with other square movements. I guess that fighting against Yanukovich´s "family" usurping the state, against the police protecting and itself
embodying the corrupt regime and for an ideal of "West-like" democracy
is the Ukrainian way of fighting for "real democracy"? Is that right?

Denis: Roughly so, yes. I don’t even know what else to add.

Vratislav: The Maidan as a
social body has to tackle its own reproduction, to organise its own
infrastructure, defence. It would be great if you could talk a bit about this important
aspect and describe how is Maidan´s internal life sustained and organised.

Denis: As far as I understand, all the potential self-organization at Maidan is substituted by the organizational structures of the rightist political forces. Svoboda, Right Sector and Spilna Sprava
occupy buildings and manage the everyday life. The parliamentary
opposition also has its voice in these matters; anyway, everything is
strongly dependent on leaders who represent the already established
political structures. For example, there are sotnias –
“hundreds”, defence units. Formally they are all under command of Andriy
Parubiy – once a founding member of Social Nationalist party of Ukraine
which is now called Svoboda, but now a member of Batkivschyna. In reality, there are units which don’t obey Parubiy or even Svoboda
(like the Right Sector), but anyway the existence of “not sanctioned”
units is doubtful. The same goes for other issues: food, firewood,
petroleum, makeshift weaponry. You can walk around and collect money for
these purposes but you must give away 70% to “bosses” who will know how
to spend that money. There is some space for self-organization but it’s
very limited. Vital things just “appear” for an ordinary person there,
rank-and-file activists don’t take any part in decision-making. Although
if you belong to a certain “sotnia”, it can be quite autonomous
in managing its own funds and resources. Then everything depends on the
structure and relations inside that particular unit.

Vratislav: So, while for instance Indignados tended to exclude political parties from occupations, in case of the Maidan opposition parties are present in its very heart and Maidan´s self-reproduction is dependent on Batkivshchina, UDAR, Svoboda and their own structures and resources. Moreover, elsewhere you said that there are no assemblies taking place at the Maidan. During two months of being and struggling together at the Maidan
participants have not produced their own separated moment of collective
decision-making. Why is it so? Because decisions are in fact made by
the opposition leaders and their hierarchies? In some other interview
you also pointed out that there is a kind of dichotomy between “the
crowd” and politicians. How does this dichotomy come into existence and
expresses itself?

Denis: I think I’ve partly answered your question above. Yes, the opposition parties are not exactly popular among people at Maidan,
they are considered to be opportunists pursuing their own interests and
ready to betray the protest movement. But still they are indeed
managing the infrastructure of Maidan and are the ones who make
actual decisions. Indeed, there haven’t appeared any assemblies or other
instruments of collective decision-making. Maybe in certain respect
this paradoxical situation is a reflection of the society as a whole
with its paternalistic attitudes and social passivity: it’s convenient
to hate bosses but to let them do the things!

Vratislav: There was an assembly in Sumy electing
so called regional “National Council” and establishing district
National Councils in order to control local politicians and investigate
corruption; and organising “citizen militia” units. They describe the
same process taking place in Lviv and quote a local “commander Sokolov”
who said the National Councils are taking over and are about to elect
their executive committees, while politicians will be excluded from
them, because people do not trust them anymore. Could you possibly
explain more about this tendency and analyse it a bit?

Denis: As far as I know, those
“National Councils” usually consist of self-appointed party activists
and deputies of local and regional councils. They’ve promised to hold
elections but so far no transparent elections have been organized. The
optimism of the Byelorussian comrades is based on wildly exaggerated
assumptions. These “National Councils” didn’t dare to take on any real
powers, they didn’t do anything which could be considered “usurping of
power” and hardly broke any law! The head of the Lviv “National Council” who is, incidentally, also the
head of the Lviv regional council and prominent member of Svoboda,
requested protesters to leave the building of the regional state
administration. Andriy Sokolov, the commander of the “militia” that
you’ve mentioned, promptly complied and cleared the building. So, the
“revolutionary” National Council has in effect died, not having done
anything at all.

Vratislav: I see. So even in the
regions we get the same picture as in Kiev: the movement's distrust
towards political parties doesn´t really translate into any serious
attempts at forming self-organised bodies that would be able to
authentically articulate movement´s content. Recently, I read that there
was also an attempt of various citizens´ associations and initiatives
involved in the Maidan to organise the Citizens' Council of the Maidan
as a direct expression of the movement. However, oppositional
politicians were able to effectively discredit and abort this attempt.
Could you possibly tell me more about this development? Who were the
people behind this Citizens' Council? How and why they could fail so
easily?

Denis: The “Civic Council of Maidan”
was formed by several prominent human rights activists, lawyers,
celebrities and NGOs who don’t particularly like parliamentary
opposition and are not very fond of nationalists. As far as I know, the
Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine also joined them. They’ve
tried to create a liberal (partly even left liberal) alternative in the
movement, stipulating the importance of human rights, civic freedoms,
horizontal decision-making, grassroots initiatives etc. But somehow they
failed to develop into any serious force. The initiative is mostly
virtual, without any considerable number of rank-and-file activists on
the ground. Why is that? The reason, I think, is not the cunning
strategy of the opposition, but the objective conditions, namely, the
state of public discourse. If a person is interested in oppositional
activity, she will most likely join the “stronger” current with brave
nationalist machos and powerful politicians. The number of people who
are earnestly interested in such alternative “civic” movement is quite
small, indeed; in this field everything has been eaten up by the
opposition in December, after the “civic” Maidan (initially at Maidan per se) was merged with the “political” Maidan
(initially at the European Square). After that, politicians said many
things about how you can’t do anything without their support. And to a
certain extent they are right! Indeed, today Maidan consumes lots of material and human resources provided by parties.

Vratislav: In an interview for LibCom you explained how the opposition parties attempted to transfer the Maidan
beyond its territorial borders by proclaiming a political general
strike and how they failed quite miserably. The reason you gave was that
they do not have any workplace structure to do that. However, the Maidan
has been able to spread from Kiev to other regions, but it seems that
once again only as a movement of occupations and riots. You also talked
about a protest of Kiev public transport company workers that did not
find its way to the Maidan and vice versa. And you mentioned that
Ukrainian people are not used to striking. In sum, does it mean that
the Ukraine (as most other Central and Eastern European countries and
many other regions of the world) is characterised by a striking lack of
workplace struggles? In your view, what are the reasons?

Denis: Yes, that’s right. There
are plenty of theories to explain the labour weakness in the Eastern
Europe. One of the most convincing is the legacy of Soviet political
culture where you had bosses who did everything for you and instead of
you. There is a huge institution left from the USSR, Federation of Trade
Unions of Ukraine. Officially, it has millions of members, but it is in
no way a militant organization which defends workers’ rights. They have
good lawyers and bureaucrats who take part in the procedures of social
partnership, honestly trying to win as many concessions as they can, but
they see themselves as co-managers of the corporatist economy, not as
representatives of workers. As for other, truly independent, militant
unions – well, there are virtually none.

Why hasn’t the workplace militancy
developed during post-Soviet time? Partly because of the long and
painful economic crisis. You can’t unionise and strike when you’re about
to be kicked out into the streets, and your factory is about to close.
There were massive strikes in 1990s, to be sure, but they were mostly
organized by management of non-privatized enterprises as an instrument
of pressure on their bosses. So, new structures and institutions which
could become a base for an independent workers’ movement simply did not
appear. The old pattern of delegating your struggle to the bosses was
thus confirmed. And the economic boom of 2000s turned out to be too
short for changing that attitude.

Vratislav: Now, could you possibly explain what other struggles have been going on around the Maidan and if there were at least some attempts to link them with the Maidan?
We have just mentioned a protest of public transport workers in Kiev. I
also read something about a student strike in Kiev-Mohyla Academy.
Could you perhaps also explain what is the relation of the Ukrainian
ultra-left towards both the Maidan and other struggles? What is its role and activities in them? I assume it must be very difficult to be involved in the Maidan,
given the influence of fascists and ethno-nationalists. Nevertheless, I
read about anarchists and feminists being present and active there.

Denis: The far left have been divided to some extent in their relation to the Maidan.
A smaller part declared the protests as utterly reactionary and
declined any support at all. The problem is that such position pushes
them into the ranks of government supporters! The logical outcome is the
situation where a member of one such organization, Borotba,
defends the regional state administration in Odessa from the siege by
opposition activists. True, the siege was led by neo-nazis, but there
were neo-nazis among the defenders as well! Namely, local “Cossacks”,
paramilitary pro-Russian units.

Another part of the left repetitively
tried to join the movement, even after they were repetitively kicked out
of it. Some of the “euro-enthusiastic” leftists came to Maidan
in November with red (instead of blue) flag of the EU, with banners for
free healthcare and education, and with feminist slogans. They were
brutally attacked by Nazis. Then there was an episode when the far-right
attacked the tent of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine
near the Maidan. A man on the stage said that there were some
“provocateurs” and said that “men know what to do”; as a result, a mob
of Nazis has broken ribs of the trade union activists, tore their tent
with knives and stolen their property. The victims hadn’t been doing
anything “leftist” per se, but they were members of the left movement,
known to their political adversaries, and that was enough.

Anyway, most of the left activists
understand that it’s not their war. After the “dictatorial laws” were
passed, they decided to join the movement – not so much as political
activists, more as common citizens whose political freedoms were at
risk. Many leftists joined forces to institute the “Hospital Watch”:
guarding injured people in hospitals so that they are not taken away by
the police. Of course, this is an infrastructural, “humanist”, not
political project. Other people tried to organize an all-Ukrainian
student strike. They started from the Kiev-Mohyla Academy but eventually
failed: everything was over when the university was closed for winter
vacations anyway.

Now there is also another group of people who are often confused with the radical left. I mean organizations like “Narodniy Nabat”
and several other initiatives who call themselves anarchists but
actually have a very conservative political agenda full of machismo and
xenophobia. After the protests have begun, they shifted to the right
dramatically; they reached truce with the nazi groups and showered
Molotov cocktails at the police together. Eventually, they parted ways
with left movement finally.

A week ago they, together with some actual leftists who wanted to “act”, decided to form an “anarchist sotnia” in the Maidan
self-defence. In order to do that, they were prepared to give an oath
to Andriy Parubiy. But when they formed their ranks to do this, they
were met by approximately 150 Svoboda fighters with baseball bats
and axes. The fascists accused them of being racially impure and
politically irrelevant and forced them out of Maidan. Now, the
funny thing is that the next day those macho-nationalist-“anarchists”
said that the reason for their bad relations with the Svoboda paramilitary was that some of our comrades draw anti-nationalist graffiti around Maidan. So they threatened to beat them up for distorting their friendship with the Nazis!

The most reasonable strategy for the
left, as for me, is to try to build a “second front” against the
government as well as the far-right. This should be done from outside of
Maidan, not from inside of it. We should not be afraid of saying
who we are and what are our ultimate political goals; only in this way
we can build a strong political coalition with other forces who are in
the same position right now (namely, with left liberals who are also
excluded from the movement). Right now we are planning a campaign
against political dictatorship, stipulating that the weakening of
presidential powers actually does not correspond to the interests of any
political parties. This can be a rallying point for a broad coalition,
and then we can start developing a critique of bourgeois democracy per
se. Another important direction is preparing for anti-austerity campaign
if the government faces budget crisis later this year. But anyway, we
must understand that we cannot reverse the fundamental trends and
achieve cultural hegemony overnight. We have a lot of hard work before
us, there will be years before we will have our own revolution.

'We cannot let the right monopolise politics outside of parliament'

Socialist Ilya Budraitskis visited the Maidan in early January – and
thinks that the left must do more to get involved in the protests.

Ilya, you’re active in Moscow in the Russian Socialist
Movement, and you were in Kiev to observe the Ukrainian movement against
president Viktor Yanukovich. Why?

We’ve had contacts with the left in Kiev for a while. I went there
two weeks ago when the situation reached crisis point and the
anti-protest laws were passed, which would have made a police state
possible.

How did the movement respond?

It became more radical. First there were huge clashes with the
police, with the aim of storming parliament. The protesters put up the
well-known huge barricades at the edges of the parliamentary quarter,
and there were several deaths. Was the movement successful?

Yanukovich realised that he wasn’t going to make any progress against
the movement by strengthening repression, so he tried bribing them with
government jobs. The president even asked the opposition parties to
appoint the prime minister. But they had to refuse this because the
offer of power was on the condition that protesters leave the streets of
Kiev. They weren’t able to persuade the protesters. Opposition leaders
were booed on the Maidan after their negotiations with Yanukovich.

What are your impressions of the movement?

People are incredibly determined. They’ve been in Kiev’s central
square for two months and they’re still holding it against the police,
using four metre high barricades for example.

Many buildings in the area are occupied, including the mayor’s
office, the central trade union building and a large exhibition centre.
Everywhere there’s self-organised infrastructure for hot food, heating
equipment, medical care, information centres, allocation of warm
clothing and more. The level of self-organisation is impressive. All
this has been set up by ordinary people themselves – not by the
political parties.

Are the protesters intimidated?

Not so far. They go through the streets in helmets and with batons,
and when they see an isolated police officer, they beat him up. As a
result there are no more police in the area. The regime can let the
situation turn into civil war, or it can retreat.

What political forces are active?

There is a huge amount of political agitation, almost all of it from
right wing and far right groups. They range from the neoliberal
opposition parties to the extraparliamentary ultranationalists of the Right Sector.

What is the Right Sector?

It’s an alliance of different extreme right groups setting up
military structures. Among them are battle-hardened “ultra” fans of the
Dynamo Kiev football team.

How do the protesters react to the extreme right?

For the most part in a positive way. Not because they support their
ideology, but because the extreme right – to look at it objectively –
are the most courageous part of the movement, they are literally the
best fighters. No one goes on the offensive against the police like the
extreme right does. However others see them as extremists who put the
movement in a bad light.

One of the three opposition parties is Svoboda…

… which is the strongest far right party in the Ukraine, polling 10%
at the last elections. Apart from anything else, its rise became
possible because Victor Yuschchenko, the previous president, backed
nationalism strongly until 2010.

How do you mean?

Well, for example, Yushchenko said that Ukrainians members of the SS
during the Second World War were patriots fighting against foreign
domination by the Soviet Union.

What?!

You can only understand this in the context of Ukrainian nationalism.
In the Ukraine there are about 20 statues of Stepan Bandera, the best
known SS leader. This far right version of nationalism is part of the
mainstream in Ukraine. It’s the basis for the success of parties like
Svoboda, which now plays a key role in the Maidan.

So is this a fascist movement?

I think that German socialists, at least, who throw the word “fascist” around, should learn a bit about the history of fascism.

What do you mean by that?

Fascism arose after the First World War as a counter-movement to
strong revolutionary communist workers’ movements across large parts of
Europe. Fascists had the explicit aim of smashing these workers’
movements and securing the dominance of capital, something the liberal
state could not guarantee. They were able to seize power in Italy and
Germany, but not in other countries.

And today?

In Ukraine in 2014 there is neither a strong workers’ movement, nor a
fascist movement that aims to destroy it, nor a state which capital
doesn’t trust. The situation is neither about bringing the working class
to power, nor about physically destroying the workers’ movement.

So what sort of a movement is this?

The people fighting on the Maidan come from various oppressed
classes: workers, the unemployed, the impoverished self-employed,
students who won’t be able to get jobs and so on. Their opponent is the
state and the political elites. It’s a mistake to call the movement
fascist, because the class composition of parties in conflict is quite
different.

But there are fascists in the Maidan.

Absolutely. The ideology of the Right Sector is unambiguously fascist.
And they are trying to establish their dominance over the mass movement.
But so far, fortunately, they haven’t succeeded – because the core of
the movement doesn’t have anything to do with fascism.

So what is its core?

I don’t have a name for it. It comes from a post-Soviet society which
has been robbed of class consciousness and has no tradition of protest.
So movements can take on very different forms – and change their
character particularly quickly, moving to the left or to the right.

How did the political character of the movement arise?

Now it has a nationalistic, partly anti-communist character. This is
partly because right wing groups were the best prepared for the
situation. But it is also because of the catastrophic role played by
Ukraine’s Communist Party.

The Communist Party polled 13% at the last elections.

Yes – and then they found nothing better to do than become a key
source of support for Yanukovich’s government. Most Ukrainians associate
the left mainly with the Communist Party. And, of all people,
Communists in parliament voted for Yanukovich’s anti-protest laws. Without their votes, the laws would have been defeated.

How is that possible?

The Communist Party has been bought by oligarchs from East Ukraine in
just the same way as they bought Yanukovich. It openly supports Russian
nationalism. Communist politicians speak openly about their good
relationship with Kyril I, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

What position do they take towards the Maidan movement?

They criticise the Ukrainian nationalism, but not from a position of
internationalism. Rather they put forward Russian chauvinist arguments –
and so replace one nationalism with another. I recommend that all left
parties in Europe break off contact with the Ukrainian Communist Party.
Politics like theirs should not be tolerated.

What are genuine Ukrainian leftists doing?

People on the left hold various opinions about the movement and have
done from the start. Some saw it as a far right movement, alien to them,
something they shouldn’t take part in. Others have got involved and are
trying to influence the political direction of the movement.

That must be hard to do.

There are lots of well-organised far right activists on the Maidan
ready to attack socialists. Left activists have had their leaflets and
flags seized, and some have been beaten up.

So this is no place for the left?

Yes there is, precisely because of that! Of course we have to take
care of our physical safety. But as long as that is guaranteed, we
cannot stand by and do nothing while the extreme right establishes
political dominance. We cannot hand the movement over to them. We cannot
let the right monopolise extraparliamentary politics.

Are you willing to debate with Nazis?

Perhaps with some of them. The main thing is that a large majority of
protesters are politically active for the first time – and they are now
holding the Maidan against brutal battalions of police. Some 300,000
people took part in the biggest demonstrations in Kiev. The vast
majority of them don’t have anything to do with the extreme right.

Why are the ultranationalists such a strong force?

Do you know when a lasting, independent Ukrainian state was established for the first time?In 1991 – when the Soviet Union collapsed. That’s why patriotic
slogans get so much support in Ukraine. That’s why so many Ukrainians
think like the inhabitants of a colony 20 years after independence: “The
most important thing is that we aren’t controlled by a great power.”

But the movement is strongest in West Ukraine…

… because there’s not just a class divide in Ukraine, but also a
strong division on economic and cultural levels. In the eastern half of
Ukraine most people speak Russian as a mother tongue, at work, in
school. Even Vitali Klitschko’s mother tongue is Russian – he speaks
Ukrainian with a strong accent.

And in the western half?

People there speak mainly Ukrainian. This is one of the poorest
countries in Europe, and more people are clearly poor or unemployed in
the western part than in eastern industrial areas around Kharkiv and
Dnipropetrovsk. West Ukrainians migrate to the Czech Republic and Poland
because pay there is significantly higher than at home.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is led by the Kiev patriarchate in the west. It split from the main church in 1991 and its priests now speak
from the stage at the Maidan. In the east, by contrast, the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church led by the Moscow patriarchate has most support – and
its priests are normally on the side of Yanukovich.

What significance does this have for the movement?

In the West, 99 per cent of people support the protests. People have
come to Kiev in buses to live in the Maidan for weeks. They are afraid
of being dominated by Russia. Above all else they are against
Yanukovich, who in their eyes wants to make Ukraine into a Russian
colony again.

Are they wrong to be afraid?

Not entirely, no. The Russian state is always trying to make Ukraine
more dependent upon it, by turning off the natural gas pipeline during
winter for example. You can’t blame the Ukrainians for having no trust
in Vladimir Putin.

Is the EU the alternative for the movement?

The movement is primarily directed against the Yanukovich government.
The EU question is less important. But of course, it’s the only
tangible alternative to an orientation towards Russia. And apart from
that, many are under the illusion that rapprochement with the EU will
bring to the Ukraine the prosperity, freedom and democracy of many EU
countries.

Who benefits from a rapprochement between Ukraine and the EU?

Some oligarchs, the ones who control the opposition parties, think it
would be a good deal. But negotiations would do nothing to address
problems ordinary people face – the struggle against corruption,
political and social reform. It’s mainly about access to the Ukrainian
market for big EU companies.

Couldn’t an alliance with the EU ease Ukraine’s economic crisis?

The fate of our East European neighbours suggests otherwise. In
Romania and Bulgaria, for instance, prices have risen but incomes have
not. More and more young people have to migrate to work for very low
wages in Western Europe – where they are used to push down the pay
locals can earn. Joy over EU membership disappeared very quickly in
these countries. Officially, all EU citizens are equal – but some are
more equal than others.

So why are illusions in the EU so strong?

What set off the protests in November last year was Yanukovich’s last
minute failure to sign an agreement with the EU. Until that point then
both the government and the opposition parties campaigned for
integration of Ukraine into the EU.

An unsigned agreement led to a mass movement?

Yanukovich had prepared no propaganda for his change in strategy.
Literally overnight, members of the government said that the agreement
stood in fundamental contradiction to the national interests of their
beloved homeland, when those same people had explained 24 hours before
that only the agreement could save the Ukraine from decline.

A real PR disaster…

… which played a decisive role in the spontaneous outbreak of
protests. People felt Yanukovich was leading the Ukraine towards the EU,
when suddenly Putin pulls out his credit card and makes him an offer he
can’t refuse. That’s what it looked like.

… which the opposition parties made clever use of.

The oligarchs who controlled them thought it would mean more profits
for them. But the key point is that oligarchs and their parties have
found it difficult to direct the movement. It has become an autonomous
centre of political power, and it is worth the left struggling around
it.

Are all the East Ukrainians on Yanukovich’s side?

If there was a referendum over unification of Ukraine with Russia,
even in the east most people would vote no. They don’t trust the Russian
government. But Yanukovich does still have support in the east.

Does that mean the government is stable?

No. What weakens Yanukovich – as well as the mass movement in the
west – is the oligarch system itself. Several “sponsors” of Yanukovich’s
Party of the Regions are now privately demanding his resignation. If
the oligarchs make this position public, the president would quickly
lose his remaining support among the people. According to a recent
opinion poll, Klitschko would win in a run-off for president against
Yanukovich with a big majority. That means many Russian-speaking East
Ukrainians would vote for Klitschko.

So is Klitschko the star of the movement?

What the media hides is the fact that the movement is, fundamentally,
extremely critical of politicians and other self-proclaimed leaders.
Klitschko is one of the few who hardly gets booed when they speak in the
Maidan – but that doesn’t in any way make him a star.

Where does this critical attitude to politicians come from?

Many of the opposition politicians – Yulia Tymoshenko, for example –
have already proved they are corrupt. So far Klitschko hasn’t – but he
depends on the same business leaders as the others.

You keep mentioning oligarchs. What makes them so special compared with billionaires elsewhere?

An oligarch doesn’t just have influence over the economy and society,
but also direct control over one or more political parties. So an
oligarch can transform his finance capital directly into political
power.

Which parties are controlled by oligarchs?

All the parties in parliament are financed to a great extent by
oligarchs. Only Svoboda came out of ideologically formed activists – and
in a favourable situation it has used the opportunity to get a lot of
money. But without oligarchs even Svoboda would not have become so
influential.

What do the media say about this?

The oligarchs own all the big TV companies and control directly what
they broadcast. Svoboda politicians were already being invited onto
important talk shows when the party was only getting 0.8% in elections.
Meanwhile it’s unthinkable that anyone from the left would be allowed to
speak.

Is this conflict just a conflict between different blocs of capital?

Elites always try to use mass movements for their own ends. If we
were to wait for a movement free from capital’s influence of capital and
led entirely by workers, we’d wait for ever – particularly in Eastern
Europe. We’d need a very different society from the one we currently
have for such movements to exist.

A different society would make such a movement possible?

Exactly. Every protest movement mirrors the contradictions of the
society in which it fights. In Ukraine you have strong nationalism and
extremely powerful oligarchs on the one side, with no tradition of self
organisation, class consciousness, or big unions on the other. What sort
of protest can you expect?

Is there no way forward?

Yes there is. But those of us on the left first have to discuss how
we act in these circumstances. Should we condemn these movements because
it’s too difficult for us to work in them? Should we decide we’d rather
go home because the protesters in the Maidan wave the Ukrainian flag,
sing the national anthem and shout “long live Ukraine”?

What do you suggest?

It’s tough. When you tell them in the Maidan that you’re a Marxist,
you can get attacked. But the politics and character of the movement are
still developing. People change their politics enormously quickly – and
they are very open to political ideas.

What signs of that do you see?

As late as
December, a lot more people trusted Klitschko. No one could have
imagined then the kind of struggles they were capable of in January.

Can the left organise in this situation?

There are almost always possibilities there for the left. There are
many problems for which the left can offer a solution – and in a way no
one else can.

How do we get involved?

Most people in the Maidan want to organise themselves. They want
direct democracy, not negotiations behind closed doors. These are the
ideas people in the Maidan are fighting the police over, despite the
fact that one of their comrades was murdered. And this is the place
where leftists have to bring their ideas.

How can the left in Kiev improve?

We must learn to take notice of the situation. An attitude of “I’m
going to spread my own slogans or nobody’s” doesn’t go down well in
Kiev. I think it’s inexcusable if socialists deliberately don’t go to
the Maidan – which has unfortunately happened.

Inexcusable?

Yes. If we stay away, we leave the people to the Right Sector, whom
we hate so much. No one will thank us for not going where the far right
goes – except the far right themselves.

Is that possible in practice?

Of course. It might mean I have to leave my beloved red flag at home,
because it goes down badly. So what? I want to get into political
contact with people. Something is radical if it leads to success. It’s
not our fault that a red flag is unpopular – it’s down to the Communist
Party. But we have to respond intelligently to that fact.

Can the movement win?

It depends on what “winning” means. The movement can bring down
Yanukovich – he’ll lose power sooner or later. But many protesters want
to change society, to change the political system. This movement won’t
be able to win that.

So is it all pointless?

Absolutely not. Many people will be disappointed, but they will also
gain experience on which they can build. Some will realise that a social
struggle is also necessary if their lives are to be improved. If that
happens in the near future, it will be an enormous step forwards.

[Ilya Budraitskis is a member of the Russian Socialist Movement (Rossiiskoye Sotsialisticheskoye Dvizheniya). The organisation emerged at the start of 2011 from a restructuring on the left and a fusion of different groups. It sees itself as a pluralistic, anti-capitalist, radical left coalition movement that advocates a new and democratic socialism.]